Women's Past Experiences Research Articles

Factors influencing the uptake and use of nicotine replacement therapy and e-cigarettes in pregnant women who smoke: a qualitative evidence synthesis.

Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) delivers nicotine without the toxic chemicals present in tobacco smoke. It is an effective smoking cessation aid in non-pregnant smokers, but there is less evidence of effectiveness in pregnancy. Systematic review evidence suggests that pregnant women do not adhere to NRT as prescribed, which might undermine effectiveness. Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have grown in popularity, but effectiveness and safety in pregnancy are not yet established. The determinants of uptake and use of NRT and e-cigarettes in pregnancy are unknown. To explore factors affecting uptake and use of NRT and e-cigarettes in pregnancy. We searched MEDLINE(R), CINAHL and PsycINFO on 1 February 2019. We manually searched OpenGrey database and screened references of included studies and relevant reviews. We also conducted forward citation searches of included studies. We selected studies that used qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, included women who had smoked in pregnancy, and elicited participants' views about using NRT/e-cigarettes for smoking cessation or harm reduction (i.e. to smoke fewer cigarettes) during pregnancy. We identified determinants of uptake and use of NRT/e-cigarettes in pregnancy using a thematic synthesis approach. Two review authors assessed the quality of included studies with the Wallace tool. Two review authors used the CERQual approach to assess confidence in review findings. The contexts of studies from this review and the relevant Cochrane effectiveness review were not similar enough to fully integrate findings; however, we created a matrix to juxtapose findings from this review with the descriptions of behavioural support from trials in the effectiveness review. We included 21 studies: 15 focused on NRT, 3 on e-cigarettes, and 3 on both. Studies took place in five high-income countries. Most studies contributed few relevant data; substantially fewer data were available on determinants of e-cigarettes. Many studies focused predominantly on issues relating to smoking cessation, and determinants of NRT/e-cigarette use was often presented as one of the themes. We identified six descriptive themes and 18 findings within those themes; from these we developed three overarching analytical themes representing key determinants of uptake and adherence to NRT and/or e-cigarettes in pregnancy. The analytical themes show that women's desire to protect their unborn babies from harm is one of the main reasons they use these products. Furthermore, women consider advice from health professionals when deciding whether to use NRT or e-cigarettes; when health professionals tell women that NRT or e-cigarettes are safer than smoking and that it is okay for them to use these in pregnancy, women report feeling more confident about using them. Conversely, women who are told that NRT or e-cigarettes are as dangerous or more dangerous than smoking and that they should not use them during pregnancy feel less confident about using them. Women's past experiences with NRT can also affect their willingness to use NRT in pregnancy; women who feel that NRT had worked for them (or someone they know) in the past were more confident about using it again. However, women who had negative experiences were more reluctant to use NRT. No trials on e-cigarette use in pregnancy were included in the Cochrane effectiveness review, so we considered only NRT findings when integrating results from this review and the effectiveness review. No qualitative studies were conducted alongside trials, making full integration of the findings challenging. Women enrolled in trials would have agreed to being allocated to NRT or control group and would have received standardised information on NRT at the start of the trial. Overall, the findings of this synthesis are less relevant to women's decisions about starting NRT in trials and more likely to help explain trial participants' adherence to NRT after starting it. We considered most findings to be of moderate certainty; we assessed findings on NRT use as being of higher certainty than those on e-cigarette use. This was mainly due to the limited data from fewer studies (only in the UK and USA) that contributed to e-cigarette findings. Overall, we judged studies to be of acceptable quality with only minor methodological issues. Consistent messages from health professionals, based on high-quality evidence and clearly explaining the safety of NRT and e-cigarettes compared to smoking in pregnancy, could help women use NRT and e-cigarettes more consistently/as recommended. This may improve their attitudes towards NRT or e-cigarettes, increase their willingness to use these in their attempt to quit, and subsequently encourage them to stay smoke-free.

No Perfect Method: Exploring How Past Contraceptive Methods Influence Current Attitudes Toward Intrauterine Devices.

Little research on contraceptive decision-making takes a holistic perspective to understand women's contraceptive journeys throughout the reproductive life course. This analysis investigated how Black and Latina women's past experiences with contraceptive use and acquisition impact their feelings and attitudes toward future use of intrauterine devices (IUDs). We utilized data from in-depth interviews that explored contraceptive decision-making and knowledge of, interest in, and attitudes toward IUDs among 38 young Black and Latina women collected in 2013 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here, we focused on the IUD decision-making process among a subsample of 32 women who were not using or had not previously used an IUD. Overall, we found a strong link between past contraceptive experiences and attitudes regarding future use of IUDs. Notably, participants often referenced experiences of side effects with previous methods when explaining their interest-or lack thereof-in IUD use, as well as made links between contraceptive attributes they had experienced positively and attributes of the IUD. A minority of participants described being satisfied with their current method, resulting in a lack of interest in considering IUD use. More than half of participants described distrust, either in healthcare providers owing to previous negative interactions and contraceptive failures of provider-recommended methods or owing to family members' and friends' negative experiences with IUDs. This distrust undergirded their lack of interest in the IUD. These findings highlight the importance of locating contraceptive decision-making in the broader context of reproductive journeys.

The Serendipity of Connectivity: piecing together women's lives in the digital archive

ABSTRACTThe digitisation of archives has enabled the public lives of very ordinary women in the past to become much more accessible to the historian. But some have argued that the wonders of searchable Internet databases have taken the serendipity out of historical research, with our understanding of the context and richness of the past the poorer for the ease with which we can now zoom into what we set out to find. This article uses the author's research into the lives of mid-nineteenth-century, colonial, urban businesswomen as a case study to investigate the pleasures and the pitfalls of the digital archive for women's history research. It concludes that a new kind of serendipity—the serendipity of unexpected connections between people and across spaces—is provided by the ever-growing global digital archive, enabling us to see these women more completely than previously possible and creating a new narrative of women's past experiences.

Decision Making about Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy Among BRCA1/2 Noncarriers with Newly-diagnosed Breast Cancer: Examining Cognitive, Emotional, and Sociodemographic Influences

Abstract Pre-surgical BRCA1/2 genetic testing provides valuable risk information to guide a newly-diagnosed breast cancer patient's decision about whether to have a contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) to reduce her future risk of cancer in her unaffected breast. Although BRCA1/2 mutation noncarriers face a much lower objective ten-year risk of developing contralateral disease (approximately 3–10%) as compared to the risk of BRCA1/2 mutation carriers (27–37%), some noncarriers still choose to undergo a CPM. The psychosocial factors that motivate this decision are not well understood and warrant investigation. Thus, as part of a prospective study of pre-surgical BRCA1/2 testing, we examined the frequency and psychosocial correlates of the decision to undergo a CPM among newly-diagnosed breast cancer patients who were identified as BRCA1/2 mutation noncarriers. Self-report questionnaire data from 90 BRCA1/2 noncarriers (median age = 43 years, range = 29–59) were analyzed. A sizeable minority of the BRCA1/2 noncarriers (24.4%) chose to undergo a CPM after learning their mutation status (compared to 88% of the 8 BRCA1/2 carriers in the sample). Both bivariate and multivariable analyses indicated that perceiving that one's physician had recommended CPM (OR = 11.17, P = 0.007), perceiving greater risk for contralateral breast cancer (OR = 6.46, P = 0.02), and perceiving greater pros of CPM (OR = 1.37, P = 0.004) were all significantly associated with noncarriers' decision to undergo CPM. However, factors including age, Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity, breast cancer-related distress, perceived cons of CPM, and decisional conflict regarding CPM were not related to the CPM decision (all ps > 0.05). Results demonstrate that although noncarriers' decision making regarding CPM was unrelated to sociodemographic and emotional factors, their cognitive perceptions of contralateral disease risk, surgical benefits, and physician recommendations were particularly important. Future studies should examine the content of patient-physician communication regarding CPM and hereditary risk in greater detail, and explore how these conversations shape and interact with women's past experiences, emotions, and beliefs to influence their cancer prevention decisions.

The Reliability of Retrospective Unemployment History Data

This paper sets out to examine the reliability of data on men's and women's past experiences of unemployment spells which has been gained by asking individuals to recall these spells and the dates of their occurrence. Surveys seek individuals' history data either to gain information about the initial conditions of respondents, or to examine these histories in their own right. It is much less expensive to collect data about individuals' histories by asking them to recall their experiences than it is to collect the same data from a panel survey over many years. However, important questions arise concerning the reliability and validity of data collected by the recall method. Reviews of the tests carried out on recall data show that there are some important lessons to learn, particularly when individuals are being asked to recall experiences short in duration and low in importance (Dex 1995). Validity is difficult to assess. This paper seeks to extend the body of knowledge about the reliability of recall data on individuals' unemployment histories by providing empirical data on two large-scale surveys which collected similar data on unemployment histories from large numbers of British adults in the early 1990s; Wave 2 (1992) of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) and the 1994 Family and Working Lives Survey (FWLS).

Women negotiating heterosex: Implications for AIDS prevention

The AIDS epidemic has made it imperative that sexual behaviour be changed. This paper examines heterosexual negotiation, which will form the focus for behaviour change. The processes involved in such negotiation are little understood. Research was carried out using the method memory work, which generated and theorised data relating to women's past experiences in sexual encounters. The method, originated by Haug, provides a way to examine how sexuality is produced and reproduced through reflection and reconstruction of past experiences. Memories are analysed by examining gaps and absences, cliches and metaphors, in the search for the common understandings and taken-for-granted assumptions which set the boundaries within which encounters take place. The memories obtained can be partly understood in terms of three discourses documented by Hollway. These are the male sex drive discourse, the have/hold discourse, and the permissive discourse. The data may also be understood in relation to three permissible figures for women identified in Irigaray's analysis, namely virgin, wife-mother, and whore. The paper acknowledges that these theoretical perspectives are quite distinct, even contradictory, but nevertheless finds that each in its own way illuminates the data. It is shown that some common understandings underlying sexual encounters render negotiation not only impossible but largely unintelligible. The permissive discourse may possibly provide space for some negotiation, but the paper concludes that it is essential to develop a truly woman-centered discourse of sexuality out of which male sexuality can be problematised.